


remember who you are at the core

by Tobi_Black



Series: Founders Dark Matter AU [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark Matter Fusion, Foul Language, Gen, Sage Dammit Madara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-23 08:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12502696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobi_Black/pseuds/Tobi_Black
Summary: Aboard a ship drifting in space, seven people wake one by one. Awake and do not remember who they are.They have history and intertwining stories, but no memories of such things.So they begin anew.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Dark Matter AU I mentioned in Feline Behavior.

A ship floats in deep space, alone and seemingly drifting aimlessly.

Inside, a distress signal is heard playing on a loop in the background before the loudspeaker announces _life support is at fifteen percent_.

A stasis pod laying between two pock-marked pillars opens, and a tall man stumbles out onto his knees.

His long chestnut hair covers his face before a tanned hand wincingly brushes it back to show expressive dark eyes. He hisses in pain, hands clutching at the hair at his temples as the distress signal seems to screech in his ears, eyes squeezing shut in desperate bid to ease the emptiness that feels like is tearing him in two down in his soul.

Unaware of how in arms’ length, the metal all around him has started to bend and ripple towards him, before with a screech, it splits in a thousand tears and hand-sized sprouts spring forth.

He stumbles to his feet, eyes still squeezed shut, before he tries to escape the noise and runs down a hallway sparking and smoking from the roof.

Unaware of how in his wake, green creeps along his path from his pod towards him, growing over and coming through rents in the metal.

A second stasis pod opened and a woman stumbled out, face cool as she quickly took in the situation, before she too, was running, long blood red hair streaming behind her.

The man reached the bridge of the ship, hand still clutching the side of his face, but the plants no longer seemed to be springing up in his wake beyond the miniature flowers that floated in the air that was quickly populating the bridge.

He was examining the console, eyes squinting in confusion and lip twisting up in a pout, because _he didn’t understand,_ when the woman arrived in the room, smacking aside the flowers floating in her face.

She stepped on his in-step, hip-checked him, then shoved an elbow into his side, knocking him down in a heap to the right of the console.

He full-on pouted while curling up around his left leg, clutching at his foot and side, opening his mouth to whine, “ _Hey-!_ ”, when she turned her gaze towards him slightly, and the cold look in her purple-tinted deep blue eyes had his mouth snapping shut with a click.

The silence of the long moment was broken only by the loudspeaker announcing, _life support is at twelve percent_.

He scooted himself to the side, fiddling with a strip of his hair while a depressive air hung over him, mumbling to himself as the woman navigated the console and managed to restore life support.

He looked up at her with big, pleading eyes when she stepped back after a moment, “What was that for?”.

There was nothing mean in her face, just a very carefully crafted no-nonsense look on her face, “You were in the way.”, even if she looked like she wanted to say something else as well when he curled in further on himself with the heavy depressive air back but was interrupted when a loud sound from the hallway startled them both.

He scrambled up to his feet, and both automatically shifted to something more resembling defensive postures when a second man popped his head in, “What the fuck with all the flowers!”. He sneered, patting away the small floating flowers heavily populating the air with a pale hand holding a large gun, his other hand raising up a second gun directed towards them, “Who the fuck are you?”.

The first man cringed a little when the gun was waved his way, and answered at the same time of the woman, “I don’t know.”, who had narrowed her eyes coldly at him, “Who are _you_?”.

The second man gave a small sneering smirk, red-tinted onyx eyes narrowed in suspicion, “I got no _fucking_ idea.”.

~

Five people gathered restlessly in front of a sixth stasis pod, its inhabitant still unconscious.

The second man knocked the butt of one of his guns against the glass in irritated impatience, “Shake and wake, Tiny. Shake and wake.”, scratching roughly at the rash of spots that had broken out on his exposed pale skin.

He sneered when the scratching only made them get bigger, “Fuck. Sage’s tits.”, before banging one fist on the glass, “Wake up you fucking hag!”.

The woman inside woke with a sneer, the door swinging open before one hand clumsily lashed out and caught some of his long obsidian spikes, pulling on them as she pulled herself out of her pod, “What the fuck did you call me?”.

He screeched, one arm flailing to smack her away, “A FUCKING HAG, BITCH!”, before the other rose to shove the muzzle of his gun against the underside of her chin, “So back the fuck off!”.

She sneered at him before she let go of his hair, “With pleasure, fucker.”, then started pulling her long hazelnut brown hair up in a complicated top-knot as he smoothed out the crimp she’d given him, “Likewise, hag.”.

The first man spoke up after a second, “Who are you? You don’t remember, do you?”, dark eyes big as they quietly begged her to remember _anything_.

She was quiet for a long moment, pointedly ignoring how the second man watched her with deep suspicion, “No.”.

He cursed, shoving his gun back into its holster, “Ah, fucking hell.”.

The first man winced, trying to offer a lopsided smile to counter how the second man had turned away from them to glare murder at the ship, “That makes six of us then.”.

One of the other two spoke up then, having been previously been quietly absorbing the situation and everything so far, “What’s going on?”, adjusting his dark shoulder-length hair so most of it rested in a simple high ponytail.

The first man winced, “We all woke up, just like you. No memories. No idea of who we are or how we got here.”, eyes tracking how the second man had abandoned his glaring at the wall to stomp down past them in a bad temper, a door opening up to reveal a previously unseen hallway.

He turned back to them with a wide sharp grin, “Hey guys, check this out.”, before going forward anyway regardless of whether they followed.

After a moment, they did.

The other member of their little group spoke after a moment, dark red-tinted eyes wide with curiosity as he flittered from one wall to the next, short spiky hair bobbing erratically, “What _is_ this place?”.

The first man answered with a kind smile to the younger, “It’s a ship,” before it wobbled with a wince, “and it looks like we’re dead in space.”.

The first woman picked up where he left off, not letting him go sulk in a corner as he already seemed prone to doing by dragging him by the back of his shirt, “Systems were down and we were venting atmosphere. I was able to get us back online and restore the ship’s auto-repair protocol.”.

The third man spoke up again, “How’d you manage that?”.

The woman flicked her eyebrows up in a faint shrug, “I don’t know exactly. I was standing there at the console and it just came to me.”, thinking briefly of how it had been child’s play for her to work her way through the system upon system of layered seals that had been binding the console and draining the power from the ship, but said nothing of it.

The first man beamed from where he’d relaxed into her dragging him, holding together a bunch of the plants that had started springing up anywhere he lingered for too long, “Well, that’s a good thing. It means it’ll all come back to us eventually, right?”.

The woman dropped her grip on him to approach a locker to pull out some clothing pieces, “Hey, if anyone’s feeling under-dressed.”, ignoring how he’d pouted before standing, to grasp the pair of metal pin-knives and using them to secure her long hair in twin buns.

She spoke up after a moment, “We’ve decided to name ourselves by the order we woke up in.”, gesturing at the first man, “He’s One.”, then herself, “I’m Two.”, deciding to pointedly ignore how the second man had wandered further away and picked up a pipe and was attempting to break the lock on a large container, making a vague motion in his direction, “Three.”, then to the third man, “Four,” and the younger who’d all but bounced over to Three to perch on the container and offer commentary, “Five,”, then pointed at the other woman, “Which makes you Six.”.

Four and Six decided to examine the clothes in some of the other lockers, pulling out a deep purple high-collar short-cloak and a tight thick leather vest. They held each thing up on themselves, grimacing a little before switching, leaving Four to pull on the cloak and Six the vest. Then they mix-matched the rest of the items in their lockers, leaving Four a pair of tight leather pants with numerous sleeves in extraneous belts to slip tens of knives in, and Six a pair of light-absorbing cargo pants with chalky residue smeared around one pocket, and a belt looped over that looked like it would hold six or so grenades.

Six pursed her lips as she eyed Four, before tearing the long black sleeves half-off his shoulders.

Four shrugged at the change as One gleefully went through a different locker, pulling on dark-blue pinstriped grey loose pants, tied a dyed yellow belt around his waist to keep them up, then added a short eye-popping green jacket with long draping sleeves and exposing the small of his back.

Two opened a small box and grinned after putting one of the small devices in her ear, “We’ve got comms.”, amused at the device of her own, which was half-fashioned into jewelry for a crimson spiral that looped around the back of her ear for sharp points jutting out over her cheeks.

The others took the rest; One took the pair that extended back over the top of his ear for a leaf design, Five squealing over the jagged electric blue lightning bolts that hooked over his ears, and Six smirked at the acid-green circle of spikes around her ears, leaving Three and Four with more plain ones.

Four narrowed his eyes in thought, before addressing Two, “So, what do you think? We’re the crew of a transport vessel on some sort of a long-range haul?”.

Two seemed to think that over, “It would explain what we were doing in stasis. Ship gets in trouble, takes some damage, systems shut down. When the life support hits critical, hazard protocols kick in and we’re automatically awakened.”.

Six ‘tsked’, “Wouldn’t explain the fucking memory loss, though.”.

While most of the group tossed theories about how they got in their situation, Three continued to smash the pipe into the lock of the container until it finally breaks to Five’s cheer. He throws the pipe aside as Five scrambles back down and peers over Three’s shoulder as he opens the container, smirking, “Got it.”.

One peered over his other shoulder, curiosity shining through his eyes and giving him a faint glow, “So, what are we shipping? Seeds? Meds?”.

Three pulled back a sheet of plastic covering the top of the cargo with a wide satisfied smirk, “Something better.”, before reaching into the large case of weapons to pull out a large rifle with a collapsed scythe blade folded on top.

He flicks a switch on the handle, making the butt of the gun separate from the rest, and he flicks it to send the bulk of the gun flying through the air to a far wall with only a small chain connecting them, then with a press of a button, to deeply embed the scythe blade into the wall, “Yes, something _much_ better.”, before with press of the same button and a flick of the same switch, the chain starts to pull back with the blade once more collapsed.

He laughed as he gestured back at the crate after putting the rifle on his back, “Who wants?”.

Five smiled widely and all but dived in as he leaned over the edge to pull out a long black baton, which with a flick of a switch, released a blade to run along one side, and a press of a button, had electricity running up and down it in large arcs, “Cool!”.

One frowned heavily, and Two looked far from happy, but Six’s, “ _Nice_ ” cut them off.

No one wanted to say anything when Six grinned far too wide and sharp with pure predator in her eyes, and Five looked seconds from swooning because of it.

He almost shyly clipped it to his belt, then froze when she was suddenly behind him, boxing him in before she was reaching over the tops of his shoulders to pull out a blade as tall as her.

Her grin was smug as she stepped back and lashed the blade to her back, turning to look directly at Two as to give Five a moment to gather himself from where he’d slumped heavily against the case in a half-swoon, “We’re going to need to check this place out.”.

They all ignored Three’s flailing as Five latched onto him, “Hey!”, dreamingly gazing at Six’s back, “She’s so _awesome_.”, “WHAT?!”.

Two nodded, “Let’s pair off.”, hand coming up to catch One’s head as he flung himself at her, “Two-!”, then kicked him to the side calmly, “Three, you’re with . .”.

She paused for a long moment, trying to evaluate who wouldn’t try to murder each other in five minutes, “Three, you’re with Four. One with Five and I’ll be with Six. We’ll use these comms to keep in touch.”

At that, they split up in their respective teams.

Leaving Four with Three, who reached into the container and pulled out another weapon, this one looking a lot like a cannon.

Four just stared for a moment, while Three grinned wide and sharp, “Time to go hunting.”.

He activated it, and there was a loud buzz that seemed to settle in their very bones at being in close proximity to it, making Four ask, “Expecting trouble?”.

Three grinned wider, a battle eagerness settling in his bones as he stalked off down the hall, “Hopin’.”.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter the seventh.

Two and Six entered the bridge, batting away the lingering miniature flowers still floating around.

Two stopped at the console, eyeing the seals that she’d torn aside but still lingered with how potent and how long they’d been taxing the ship’s systems.

Six leaned against one wall, “Are you going to fix it?”, watching how Two seemed to see something she couldn’t, “I’m going to try.”, pulling out one pin and scratching above the console to stretch and pull at the top layer of seals.

~

Three and Four made their way down a hallway, Three lugging his gun-cannon with Four flipping a pair of knives he’d found in his hands.

Three kept darting forward to peer around corners and poke his head in rooms, “All I’m saying is that we don’t know how long we are going to be stuck here. It would make sense to choose a leader. You know, someone to make key decisions for the group.”, unable to wrap his head around the idea that no one had claimed leadership already.

There was a nagging something just out of reach of understanding for him that said _someone should have already_ , and that _he should_ , but he didn’t want it.

Oh, the idea of being in charge made him grin and he _craved_ it, but _being in charge_ was something else entirely. He _could_ , he had a feeling he was even _trained for it_ , but he _didn’t want to_.

Four was quiet, “Someone like you?”.

Four felt a part of him lean forward, _deeply_ interested in the answer, but Three waved it off, “Not me necessarily. But yeah, someone to represent everyone’s best interests. Someone who gets a final say in case of disagreements.”, a faint wince on his face, “I don’t know, could be me.”.

Four felt that part of him interested settle back, not quite confused and not quite relieved and not quite upset. That part of him didn’t understand _why_ Three wouldn’t, why Three appeared to _not want to_.

A different part was relieved, and even almost happy that Three _didn’t have to_.

Three lead the way onto a docked shuttle, grinning, “Now this is more like it.”.

He sat at the console, and it lit up, “I wonder if I know how to fly this thing.”.

Four grinned faintly, “Perhaps. Maybe another time though?”, and Three nodded, getting up and leading away, “Yeah, definitely coming back though.”.

~

In a different section of the ship, Five is chatting at One while they walk down a hallway, “She said it just _came_ to her when she was standing at that console?”.

One eagerly nodded back, “I did the same thing, trying to figure out what buttons to push before she arrived, and nothing came to _me_.”

Five continued one, arms flailing about at the confirmation, “How do you figure any of this? There is no way of knowing how long we were in those pods. It could have been days, months, years maybe!”, eyes wide as he tried to think over _why_ , “The weird thing is, it’s not like our minds have been wiped clean. If they had been, I wouldn’t know what a pod was, or a year, or even be able to _express myself_. Language itself would be totally alien to us, right?”.

He looked over at One, who nodded quickly, then brightened when a cloud of miniature flowers was blown their way, and ran forward.

Five blinked, “Uh, why don’t you lead?”, before running after him when One didn’t show any sign of slowing down, “Hey!”.

One ran right into a massive greenhouse, doing a full-body sigh as he felt some of that massive emptiness inside him fading.

Five paused in the door, not even seeing how One had settled right in the middle of the tall grasses and was thus now out of sight, “Whoa.”.

~

Three was wandering down a hallway, with Four following behind, before he spotted something of interest.

He walked into the room, doing a bit of a swagger when he sees that it’s a seventh person, and they’re _hot,_ leaning on the pod to look closer at the snow white short spikes and the crimson marks on his pale cheeks and strong jaw, “ _Hello_ , snowflake.”. He turned his head, “Hey, get over here Four. I found something!”, not seeing how the seventh man opened his dark crimson eyes.

~

Back on the bridge, Two continued to work to completely remove the seals binding the console while Six watched.

Six was absolutely mesmerized by how she swayed and moved, lifting and raising her arms, shifting and pulling at invisible lines for small sparkles of light to emerge with each layer removed.

Then a persistent red light drew her attention, “Why is that flashing red?”, indicating a message on the monitor.

Two frowned, red eyebrows pulling tight together, “That’s strange. The ship’s computer just initiated some sort of security protocol.”.

~

Three flew across the room, slamming into some large containers with a loud metal twang.

Four came up behind the unknown man, drawing a knife against the pale skin of his throat, “Hey there.”.

He turned, one hand knocking the knife aside as the other grasped at the other knives on Four’s person and threw them aside, then shoved _Four_ aside and across the room.

Three groaned before tapping at his comm, “This is Three. We’re under attack!”.

Two spoke in his ear, _“By who? Under attack by who?”_.


	3. Chapter 3

One and Five were running down a hallway with Two continuing to speak in their ears, _“We need help! Anybody!”_.

One tapped his comm, “We heard! Tell us where to go!”, leading the way with Five right on his heels.

_“Left at the next intersection.”_

Over the comms, there was a shout and the sound of Four hitting something solid metal, then the sound of flesh hitting flesh.

Five looked at One with wide eyes, “Is somebody going to die?”.

One’s face shadowed before he was pressing his body to run even faster, voice soft but firm with determination, “No, not if I can help it.”

The two of them arrived, One moving forward and hitting the unknown man in the face as he turned.

One winced, pulling back his reddening and bruised hand as the unknown narrowed his eyes, then grabbed the front of his shirt and threw him towards Three, who’d just been getting back to his feet, eyes giving off a faint red glow.

Four started flinging his hidden knives, and they watched as the unknown shifted ever so slightly so that each just barely missed, then caught the last one and threw it back, pinning his high collar – and him – to the wall.

Five ran forward, pulling his baton from his side and pressing a button, lighting it up, and swinging it at the unknown’s face. The other man ducked and dodged, throwing up an arm and taking a hit to grab Five by the throat, lifting him off the ground.

_“Some sort of security protocol’s been activated.”_

Three snarled, “Well override it!”, as he ran forward, throwing a series of kicks and punches and nearly driving the unknown back a step, before red eyes narrowed and he made to punch Three when Five flicked a switch and swung his baton, cutting a long swath across the unknown’s back.

He froze with one hand wrapped around Three’s throat and the other clutching Five by the front of his shirt, a snarl curling his lip moments before his eyes turned dark and glassy and his head drooped.

_“It’s done. Is everyone okay?”_

Six came into the room in a rush, leaping in a blur to lash out with her feet in mid-air to take down the inactive unknown and using her long blade to sever his hands as he’d fallen back still holding onto Three and Five, “What the fucking hell is going on?”.

~

In the med lab, the unknown laid on a table while his hands are reattached, giving quiet suggestions to Two on how to do so.

Six stood watch behind, hand tight on the ō-naginata she’d claimed, when Three, Five, and Four enter, One flittering between the unknown and Two, drawn to both.

Five held up a couple of pre-packaged meals, “Guys, we found food. Who wants some?”.

Two waved it off as her eyes narrowed, watching the re-attaching and how the fingers twitched and flexed as something that reminded her closely of nerves were reconnected. It was eerie, actually.

There was something about this unknown that was a little _too_ human to be purely a machine, even throwing in the idea of a synthetic soul.

Five threw a bar to Six, who caught it one-handed and without ever taking her gaze from the unknown.

One looked a little queasy when he was offered one, waving it off.

Six ripped open the packaging with her teeth and took a hearty bite, making a face as she chewed, “Ugh! What the fuck. Are you sure this is food and not a bad attempt to poison us?”.

Three shrugged, sneering slightly, “Does it matter? A hag like you wouldn’t die from a little poison.”, and Four stepped in before Six could do more than narrow her eyes and make a threatening step forward, “It’s close enough. Not appetizing though.”.

Five peered closer at the unknown, who had flicked red eyes over to watch this exchange with a blank look, “What’s up with the robot?”.

Two gently smacked away the hand that came up to poke the unknown, “Technically . . he is the ship’s android. Most of his biosynthetic physiology is incredibly similar to that of our ship’s outer hull. The rest of him is something else entirely. There seems to be an entire human nervous system built in, as well as what appears to be a consciousness. It would appear that he’s a step above the typical cyborg.”.

Three leered at the unknown, “That’s fascinating.”, gaze drifting to below his waist, not needing to say what he was thinking with his eyes giving off the red glow that indicated passion in his kind.

Two chose to ignore the innuendo, “He’s an extremely efficient entity. Corrector nanites have been repairing his broken parts. Seemingly able to meld human and machine seamlessly to the point where I can hardly tell what is what.”.

Four narrowed his eyes, wary where Three seemed to only be thinking of that could mean in bed if his leer was saying anything, “That’s not a problem. We can just stick him in the air-lock and space him.”.

No one missed how the unknown turned his head sharply, red eyes glittering with shrewd intelligence and what could be a flicker of fear, “That won’t be necessary. My security directives were improperly activated by the abrupt surge of energy as the systems tried to break the shackles put on it, in a final attempt to keep the ship’s primary objective with the life support failing. I have been informed that you are indeed the crew to this ship, and thus no threat to _my_ primary directive.”.

Two stepped forward to finish, “He would be immensely useful. The diagnostics suggest that he possesses some sort of neural link with the ship’s mainframe. Once he’s back online, he’ll be able to run a more effective repair command. He’ll have us space-worthy in no time.”, eyes flicking to One because the unknown had informed her in confidence that his directive was directly linked to One, even if he couldn’t remember why, and he _would_ act if they attempted to separate him from One, “He may also have some answers for us.”.

One peered closer at the unknown, something about him pulling at him, filling some of that emptiness that consumed him when he was alone, that was only moderately ebbed by being in the presence of Six.

Six gave a wide sharp grin, lifting her blade against his neck, “So, snowflake, answers.”.

His eyes flattened, clearly not amused by the nickname, “What do you want to know?”, not seeming concerned at the blade against his skin.

one spoke up quickest, “What’s your name then?”, cheeks a little pink at how more of the miniature flowers were popping up here too as he lingered.

He frowned slightly, taking a long moment to think that over, “I- I have no personal designation. It was deemed extraneous to my programming.”.

Something nagged at him though, something like a memory and something like the thought that _he’d had a name once_.

One pouted sadly, looking just so _upset_ at the idea of someone just not having a name, but _never having been given one_.

Four looked contemplative, “There’s a lot of that going around. Only we don’t remember ours.”.

The unknown narrowed his eyes, having the ghost of something that could be memories, “I- I might remember. If the memory banks of the ship weren’t damaged, I can retrieve my back-ups that weren’t damaged in the power surge that woke me, and retrieve the information.”.

Two leaned forward, “I want you to initiate a neural link with the ship’s computer then.”.

He nodded, and his eyes lit up a vibrant crimson as the red marks on his skin glowed, and left the impression that they went beyond being visible on his face to beneath his clothes, initiating the link.

There was a long moment as a soft frown formed on his face, “I have no such data. The memory banks are . . damaged. I have fragments, but they make little sense. The rest that survived was encoded.”.

That last bit had him narrowing his eyes to slits, “It will take me time to decode the remaining information.”.

Three narrowed his eyes, “How is that possible?”.

Two frowned, “It’s not. The ship’s programming is highly sophisticated – there are redundancies in place to guard against data loss. There is the isolated static file and then the active memory banks, as well as the ship’s android’s memory stores. Someone must have deliberately deleted the memory banks and corrupted the static file.”.

The six looked at each other, various levels of worry on their face.

One looked particularly unnerved, before he took a deep breath and calmed, “It wasn’t necessarily one of us.”.

Three narrowed his eyes, “Yeah? Then who the hell was it? It would be just like a Senju-”.

He blinked, seemingly surprised at what seemed to have escaped his mouth in his temper, “Senju? What is a Senju?”.

The ‘android’ answered, “A Senju is a member of an extensive clan, the predominant race of their moon. Primarily have a connection to the earth and nature that makes them what has been politely termed ‘a plant people’. The predominant race of their planet’s other moon is another extensive clan, the Uchiha. Who have a connection to fire in all of its forms that have given them the moniker of ‘hot-heads’. The two clans have been warring rivals for most of the last several millennia, due to each’s claim that they are the rightful natives of their planet, which had been abandoned in favor of the moons due to a cataclysmic event.”.

The group blinked, surprised at the wealth of information.

Four asked the question that floated around in their heads, “You remember that information, why?”.

The ‘android’ narrowed his eyes coldly, “It was relevant to my directive. I had the information stored in multiple places in my systems. I was able to piece together enough fragments to form that.”, looking almost _offended_ that he _wouldn’t_ know such a thing.

Four reminded them of the earlier concern, “Regardless of that, there is still the question of how the ship’s memories, and our memories, were damaged or wiped.”.

Six pursed her lips, “It’s a _big_ ship, with lots of places to hide. Maybe there’s someone else onboard. Though they’d have to know we’d find them eventually so I’m not sure what the point would be.”.

Three narrowed his eyes, gaze suspicious, “We don’t even know for a fact if everyone’s really lost their memory. Any one of us could be lying about that.”.

One pouted a little, “I don’t think so. Why would they lie?”.

Three turned his gaze on him, unable to believe the sheer level of _innocence_ coming off the other man. The ‘android’ answered the question before he could do more than sneer, “Because it would stick out to be the only one to remember when the rest would not. Three is suggesting that one of you could be the saboteur.”.

He continued after a second, eyes glowing red as he linked with the ship, “However, in reviewing your awakenings, there is a long moment of confusion with each of you upon waking.”.

The group shared a glance, various levels of concern and worry being passed around at the idea that if there was a saboteur, it was likely a foreign element.


	4. Chapter 4

On the bridge, the ‘android’ was watching Two manually guide the ship, “My neural link allows me instant access to the system from anywhere on the ship. Manual guidance is not only unnecessary but also _inefficient_.”, spitting out the word ‘inefficient’ out like it left a foul taste in his mouth.

Two raised an eyebrow, mentally logging the rather odd ‘quirk’ of the machine she suspected was more of a cyborg than an android, but didn’t comment on it, “We’ll worry about that later. For now, I need you to run a full diagnostic and restore all systems.”.

He narrowed his eyes, not particularly pleased with being humored, before his eyes gained that red glow that signified his initiating a link.

She laid a hand on his crossed arms, “No. _Show_ me.”, deciding to take a chance and tried to communicate an implied message – _In case we have to, without you._

He was quiet for a long moment, eyes flicking as he searched her face, then gave a shallow nod before approaching the console and beginning to work manually. Making sure to work slow enough and obvious enough that she could see every single thing he did.

Beeping began to emit from the console.

Two frowned, purple-tinted eyes narrowing as she tried to identify the noise, “What is that?”.

He cut the beeping off, “It was a subspace transmission – a distress signal from this ship. It was automatically sent out when the ship was damaged. I ended it – we are no longer in extreme distress, and it is not just unnecessary, but a threat. We don’t know who is on the other end.”.

~

In the med lab, Five was sitting on a table fiddling with a circuit board when Six entered.

He immediately flushed and tried to cover his face with his long bangs to Six’s amusement, “What are you doing, pipsqueak?”.

He colored a brighter red, mumbling, “Nothin’.”.

Six opened one of the medicine cabinets, absently scanning labels while searching for something specific, and Five perked up, curious, “What are _you_ doing?”.

Six huffed out a soft laugh at the turnabout, “Looking for something to treat a headache.”.

Five leaned forward, slowing his messing about with a circuit board, mildly concerned, “Headaches can be caused by blood vessel abnormalities or brain tumors.”.

Six turned back to look at him, “A tumor is a mass of cells that multiplies-“, a sad look on her face as she finished, “-uncontrollably. The human body creates twenty-five million new cells every second and its kidney’s process one hundred and eighty liters of blood every day.”, a sharp edge to the small smile, “Blood will spread up to two meters when the carotid artery is severed. It’s a very efficient kill stroke.”.

He blinked, confusion evident on why _she_ knew those details.

Her face screwed up at the almost-memory that no wipe could take away completely, “I think I had a little cousin just as smart as you who liked to sprout random facts.”.

Most prominent in the memory was red eyes bright with happiness. Then a wave of loss swallowed it up until she was drowning in the feeling.

It made Six grab the bottle she came for and toss back a couple of pills dry before stomping out, growling under her breathe, “There’s got to be a training area somewhere on this ship!”.

~

Three wandered the ship alone.

Approaching a locker, he opened it, reaching in and pulling its contains out, making a quick decision regarding whether what would be useful or not – the former going into a pocket as the latter got stuffed back inside – before finding a hidden panel.

Shoving everything aside, he removed it and pulled out a box.

~

Back on the bridge, Two continued to press for the status of the ship.

“It would appear that the ship has taken meteorite damage.”.

Two tapped a finger to her lip, “So _that’s_ why we were venting atmosphere.”, and he continued, “One of the four relays were also hit, causing a power surge that damaged multiple systems – including my memory banks. It will take some time to repair them all.”.

He looked irritated at that, setting aside some mental processing to decode what remained, also noting some anomalies to the damage they’d taken.

She made a note of that as well, “Do we have engines and navigation?”.

He nodded, “What about weapons?”, and his eyes got a sharp glint to them, a quiet deadly air to him that made it clear that he would make any attacking force regret doing so, “ _Ship’s_ weapons are down. However, I was built to withstand any environment and am _quite_ capable of acting as a weapon.”.

Two glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, “Noted. Still, let’s make getting the ship’s weapons back up our next priority. Save your weapons capabilities for a last resort,”, a sharp-fanged smile curling the corners of her lips, “and to be something of an ace up our sleeve.”.

He shared the dangerous gleam in her eyes, “Alright.”, deeply pleased that he’d found someone among the crew who would not hesitate to use him to his full extent if it was necessary.

~

One and Four were in the middle of the miniature jungle situated in one of the larger rooms in the ship.

One was smiling as wide as he could in the middle of a ridiculously large, red flower, the petals easily as long as Four was tall.

Four broke the quiet, speaking over the quiet sounds of nature on presumably One’s home-world, “It would appear safe to assume that you are a Senju.”

A statement punctured further by how a dozen of the miniature little floating flowers that seemed to pop up in One’s vicinity in times of high emotion/stress, suddenly appeared in a cloud behind One as he abruptly sat up, already covered in pollen.

Four’s gaze was flat despite One’s wide eyes, not needing to gesture to how, now that they knew what to look for, only the blind and nose-blind, could not put the information together regarding One, as the miniature flowers were _multiplying_ around them.

One sagged after a moment, “It would appear so.”, looking up pleadingly through his stupid thick eyelashes, “Does it matter?”.

Four’s eyebrows scrunched up in deep thought, “Not unless it turns out one of us is a Uchiha. Which I suspect Three is. And I don’t know. This memory wipe might negate that, but we honestly won’t know until things play out.”.

He thought over the rest of the crew, “This is just a suspicion, but I would hesitantly say that Six and Five are also either Uchiha or Senju. Five looks far too similar to Three, and Six would easily be described as a ‘hot-head’. I would consider the odds to be high that I am either a Uchiha or Senju as well. Two is the only one I can confidently say is _not_ one of the two clans.”.

One brightened, only really latching onto one part of that, “That means most of us have family here with us!”.

Four just looked at One for a long moment, trying to find _anything_ in the other man’s demeanor that said he’d understood that it _also_ meant that if things fell like he thought, that One was surrounded by his rival clan all by himself.

He pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation, giving a drawn-out long-suffering sigh, and got the feeling that he was _very_ familiar with being the (only) voice of reason.

One just beamed, eyes all but sparkling with a kind of bio-luminescence, clearly not finding such a thing a problem.

~

On the bridge, a squalling alarm went off.

Two’s eyes sharpened and narrowed, not liking the timing after they’d just turned off the distress signal, “What is that?”.

His eyes gave off a glow, and this time Two didn’t correct him to show her manually, “It appears another vessel has entered our scanning range.”.

Two leaned forward, able to see a lightning-quick glint out in the vast darkness of space that likely was the other ship, “And their course?”.

He narrowed his eyes, “They’re headed straight for us.”, one hand drifting down the side of the console to remove a panel, “And they just launched missiles.”, to grip at the exposed wires there, “Time to impact, sixty seconds.”.

In front of their eyes, they could see two bright lights splinter off the ship in the distance.

Two looked around the bridge, “What can we do? The weapons are down.”.

His other hand had slid down the opposite side of the console to remove the other panel, gripping the exposed wires there, “The ship is also equipped with various counter-measures I can initiate.”, eyes lighting up brighter as he took control.

There was a loud groaning that caused the floor to rattle slightly.

~

The noise echoed throughout the ship as the walls shook minutely under the force.

Three broke his glaring match with Six in the doorway of the training room to glance at the vibrating wall, “It sounds like they got the engines going.”.

Her eyes narrowed, not backing down in her glare from where she was running through her kata, “It looks like it.”.


	5. Chapter 5

The ‘android’ had woven his fingers through the wires, twining as much of the wires against his skin as he could without becoming one with the console, “Based on our current acceleration time to impact is now forty seconds.”.

Two frowned, “We can’t outrun it?”, able to feel how the ship shook, and suspected that they were being hindered by a short in the energy stabilizer.

He took a deep breathe, “I’m already pushing our engines past maximum.”, then looked at her, “I can increase the input the engines can currently handle if you create a stabilizing seal over me and the console by creating a feedback loop between my power source, the engine, my energy stabilizer, and the engine again.”.

She frowned, not understanding, “How?”.

He looked at her blood red hair, and the ridiculously large energy reserves he could tell she had in a quick scan, “I believe you are a Uzumaki. A race-clan that manipulates energy output in what has been called ‘seals’. The knowledge and skill will be there, even if the memory is not. The ability is ingrained after it has been awoken.”.

Her eyes narrowed in concentration, remembering how she’d dismantled the seals restricting the console earlier, and _knew_ he was right, before she spread out her hands.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as the multi-color design settled between them, before his eyes lit up the brightest yet and sparks flew from the skin of his lower arms where it connected with the wires and the wires themselves, a low hum setting in as he pushed the engines harder.

His teeth were grit and jaw locked as his artificial muscles spasmed beneath artificial skin, nerves firing too fast to decipher other than _intense_ pain with the captured lightning coursing through his body, “Impact remains constant at forty seconds out.”.

Her eyes caught on how the sparks began to blacken alabaster skin, narrowing as she mentally calculated how much heat and energy it would take to mark something built like the outer hull of a space-faring vessel, “What about a jump to FTL?”. She ignored how sweat was clinging to her own temples under the strain of holding a multi-layered complex seal like this active while also adjusting the input and output constantly coming and going from him as to not outright fry him.

He took a second to breathe past the pain so a scream didn’t escape his lips instead of words, “We don’t have time to execute the necessary nav calculations so we don’t land either _in_ a planet or in the midst of entering the atmosphere of one. Unless we manage to create a bit more space between us and those missiles.”.

She noted that second, and re-adjusted the input and output to a smaller degree, “Options then?”.

His eyes narrowed, lighting up further as he pressed more energy in a different direction, “I could attempt further evasive maneuvers, but at these speeds, they may overtax our artificial gravity and inertial dampeners.”.

Her eyes tracked how the missiles never seemed to get too far away, “Do it.”.

He began evasive movements, and moments later the artificial gravity failed.

~

Three flailed as he began to float, “WHAT THE FUCKING HELL?!?”.

Six quickly sheathed her blade, forcing herself forward through the air to take advantage of the inertia to go towards where Five had been sitting cross-legged fiddling with making his circuit board into something.

Then the gravity kicked back in, and the crew fell to the floor.

Despite Six’s efforts, she only barely managed to grasp Five, and while she took the brunt of the fall, he hit his head on the floor.

The ‘android’s voice is heard in their ears through Two’s comm, _“Calculations complete. Jumping to FTL.”_.

Then the ship is suddenly jerking forward, no one but Two seeing the sharp-edge to his bright-eyed smirk when he manages to get one weapon online and shoot the missiles down before they are gone.

~

In the med lab, Five awakened after hitting his head.

Six was right there, literal inches above his face, “Hey.”.

He blinked, “Wh-what happened?”, immediately coloring as he focused on the smear of red lip-paint that she’d discovered in one of her pockets and applied.

She smirked, pleased at how easy it was to fluster him, “We lost gravity for a few seconds there. When it came back on we all took a tumble. You hit your head on the way down.”.

He grimaced, able to feel the tender spot now that he paid attention, blinking a couple times at how someone had expertly tied a few bandages around his head, with a small ice-pack pressed directly to the bump beneath, “I- Yeah, I guess so.”.

Her eyes narrowed, hand coming up over his to double-check her work for the seventh time, “You okay?”.

Three made a gagging face, “Stop flirting already hag!”, deeply uncomfortable with the looks he’s seen Six give Five, and had been restless and agitated since he’d watched her check him over for any other wounds in a calm panic in the training room right after.

She sneered over her shoulder back at him, “Jealous, honey? You can’t have any of my fabulousness, I don’t date or fuck assholes.”.

Five laid a hand on her arm, trying to keep her from lunging forward when Three, ever so mature, flipped her off as he made a face, “Wrong gender hag. Even if you’re rather butch.”.

She snorted, but stayed where she was, “You’re envious that I have bigger muscles than you and can crush your skull with my thighs.”, settling a little as Five gave her a small thumbs-up, a deep blush across his face and looking a bit intrigued with _that_ information.

Eyes locking with Three the whole time, she easily manhandled the smaller Five until she had him under one arm, legs hanging off the side of the bed against her hip and half-melded to her side.

Five blushed even deeper, the color streaking down below his clothes and makes his face burn, “S-Six,”.

She just smirked as she pressed a kiss to feathery black spikes, “However, I will fuck a cutie.”, while Three spluttered and started to sound like a distressed tea kettle.

Five swooned before Three could find actual articulate words beyond the shrill noise escaping his lips.

One was a bright red himself as he spoke while Three flailed wordlessly, looking two seconds from murdering Six if she hadn’t pulled Five closer and seemed for all accounts to actively be engaging in innocent cuddling, “So does anyone have any idea who attacked us or why?”.

Two was shaking her head before he even finished, choosing to ignore Three entirely, “No. However, they came across us because the ship had been sending out a distress signal after we took damage. The signal was disabled, but they must have had a lock on it before we did. After FTL, we would have lost anyone pursuing us because of the distress signal.”.

Four looked at the ‘android’ who had led Two to the med bay and had been previously been acquainting himself with what they had, “Maybe the android knows something we don’t.”.

He blinked slowly, casually re-aligning half of one cabinet to his standards despite whatever system had been there, “I disclosed anything I knew about our previous pursuers to Two while we were on the bridge. While I was engaged in evasive maneuvers, I launched a sub-routine to shadow the other ship’s systems. I am currently still sorting out the information I’m getting from it, but it is taking time to break the code scrambling it.”.

There was a collective blink, and Two spoke, “Have you any pertinent information so far?”.

His lips thinned, “No. I’ve yet to even discover the make, model, or name of the other ship.”, looking displeased at his progress.

Six gave him a bit of a mocking salute, “So the robot has limits? Astonishing.”.

His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t respond before Two cut across the quiet – again ignoring Three, who had moved onto grumbling under his breath and insulting Six every other phrase – “That is not the immediate concern. There is the fact that we are drifting without any idea of where we are.”.

He closed the cabinet, some of his processing power going to the list he’d been building of what he knew of their supplies, “We do know where we are. We’re on a course for a nearby inhabited world.”.

Three narrowed his eyes suspiciously, “We are?”.

He nodded, “Before we were attacked, I had managed to isolate recently deleted and overwritten data from prior to going into the cyro-pod and initiated a recovery program with what parts of the encryption I’ve managed to break.”.

Four had noted the almost human mannerisms that the ‘android’ had done, and wondered as Two suggested, exactly how much was man and how much was machine, “What kind of data?”.

It was a little unnerving actually, having the ‘android’ give a languid blink, and almost spiteful gleam in his eye as he responded flatly, “The ship’s original destination. We should be arriving in less than twelve hours.”.

It made Four think of the snarl that curled synthetic skin before Two had overridden the security protocol, and that the ‘android’ was far more human than his designation as ship’s android would say.


	6. Chapter 6

The ship was traveling through space, the outer hull rippling as maintenance was performed.

Some of the damage done, unbent, while blackened bits were flaking off, and exposed spots sealed up like it had never happened.

Two watched as their ‘android’ breathed heavily, a cold sweat on his temples from the exertion it took to repair the ship quickly before the outer damage left them compromised as ‘easy targets’ for longer. He’d informed her that full repairs would take a little time, as he would have to go individually through each system and catalog each problem and start triage of the more immediate problems if they were not to dock somewhere and allow him to give his complete attention to repair. Which they couldn’t with possible pursuers and too many questions that they had no way of knowing if they were time-sensitive unless investigated.

Neither were particularly happy that he could only do what appeared to be mostly surface-level outer repairs, though they’d already decided that hull integrity was to be high up in his triage priority list, as it left a whole host of unknowns regarding what else of their internal systems were compromised.

As such, he gave her a read-out of what would need to be manually checked to be sure that the earlier power surge would not give him false positives over vital systems, and she left him there, eyes bright while he did his own check.

That he had developed sweat at all, his chest rising and falling harshly despite technically not needing air, settled wrongly with her. It decreased her original estimation that he was more android than cyborg down to 40%, and left her with the feeling that at least 40% of him was still human.

~

Three walked while fiddling with the box he had found.

His mind wasn’t really on it as he turned it around and around in his hands, thinking about the other members of the crew he had found – and the ‘android’.

He couldn’t remember the other five, but there were conflicting emotions about each of them.

One felt like both a friend and a rival, his closest ally and biggest enemy.

Two had a steadfast feeling of competency but with shaky trust, like he can’t decide if she was an ally or an enemy.

Four felt like a friend and a watchdog, a confidante and his biggest liability.

Five felt like something precious, but also a lie, something that was too good to be true.

Six felt like an enemy and a friendly rival, somebody that he would proclaim to hate and wouldn’t trust farther than he could throw her, but also wouldn’t give the satisfaction of being able to say that she couldn’t trust him with her life. He also wanted to ship her out an airlock if she kept flirting with Five, preferably while on fire.

He also didn’t doubt the feeling was mutual – the confirmation was in how she’d give him an ‘I’m watching you’ gesture while mouthing ‘don’t die bastard’ when they’d separated, Five asleep on her lap.

The ‘android’ was something else. He’d tap that in a heartbeat if he could, and the fact that he could be killed a thousand different ways in a heartbeat just made the attraction hotter, but he couldn’t help how every time he opened his mouth around the ‘android’, he just spewed antagonisms. He wanted to antagonize and antagonize until he made the ‘android’ snap and engage in a fist-fight with him.

He could feel his blood heat and eyes brighten at the idea of the ‘android’s’ face twisting in a snarl and pushed close, body pressed chest to chest, because then he would strike and shove him back, following with a hard kiss. The ‘android’ wouldn’t take it laying down either, and would push back, and honestly, the fact that he _would_ challenge him would be half the fun of the encounter.

Of course, it helped that the ‘android’ was _hot_ , for all he looked like a very special snowflake.

~

In the med lab, Six made a face as she took a bite of a food bar in a green packet.

Five looked a little green himself, watching her.

She finished the bar off before she spoke, “You know, the green ones aren’t bad. They still taste like _shit_ , but just not as much.”, before eying him closely, “You _sure_ you’re okay?”.

He knocked his knuckles against his head gently, “Yeah. Got a hard head.”.

She reached over and re-adjusted the bandages stark against his hair, “Still don’t remember hitting your head?”, the sharp twitch of her lips the only sign she’d noticed how he’d frozen at her touch.

He shook his head faintly where she still gently had hands on either side, “I just remember falling. And then blackness.”, then frowned, “And- and the door.”.

Six lowered her hands, quick to note the worry on his face, “ _What_ door?”.

Elsewhere, Three had gotten to a part of the ship none of them had been in yet.

Five chewed on his lip anxiously, “In a dark place. In the belly of the ship. A big, metal, door.”, as he didn’t know why, but something about the vague image unsettled him.

Three found a large metal door in the back half of a large cargo bay.

“They keep it locked, always.”

There was a keypad on the side of the door, but it was locked and he didn’t know – or more accurately, didn’t _remember_ – the code.

Six watched Five closely, “Why? What’s inside?”, as the teen thought of things that made no sense but left him with a sense of dread, “Secrets.”.

Three narrowed his eyes, regretting that he’d left his air cannon back in his new quarters, before reaching into his pocket and pulling a nasty little surprise he’d found hidden in his room, “Fine. Be that way.”.

His grin was sharp as he set the small mound of what looked like clay at each of the hinges for the door, put in a detonator, connected them, and trailed an ignition cord back across the room. Then he ignited the small bomb.

There was a loud boom that shook that part of the ship, and sent him flying back and slamming against the wall, to fall the ground in a heap, unconscious.

The ship continued to travel, even as the ‘android’ spoke through the intercom in a hiss, “ _Who is further damaging the ship?_ ”.

There was a moment of silence, then a chorus of “It wasn’t me” through Two’s comms.

Except for Three.

Because Three was out cold.

Two watched as the ‘android’ narrowed his eyes dangerously, and almost felt sorry for Three, but figured Three had probably earned it, “If you kill him, space the body. We don’t need him potentially compromising our air supply.”.

Then she spoke over the intercom, “Everybody, pick a room if you haven’t already, and get some rest. We’ll be dropping out in ten hours.”.

~

Six was asleep on a bed in the med lab. Five leaning against her back with his feet in the air against the wall behind her a half-finished mechanical something in his lap after he fell asleep after.

Four was out on an observation deck, meditating to try and calm himself after a look in a reflective surface revealed the same red eyes as Three, after a surge of incomprehensible feelings sprang up. Feeling that came after he had found a cryptic note written in what appeared to be in his own hand: _Izuna is alive. He is here amongst us._

Three remained passed out on the ground even when the ‘android’ came down there and kicked him, “You idiotic _Uchiha_ ,”, spitting out _Uchiha_ like others did a curse word, “you nearly ripped a hole in the hull trying to satisfy your curiosity. The walls aren’t as strong from this side, _asshole_.”.

Two stayed at the console, hands lightly moving over it as she ran through the motions of flight as the ‘android’ had shown her.

One had long been asleep in the midst of all the plants, a crystal around his neck now.

Below, Three woke with a groan, hand drifting to his side where there was a particularly painful bruise, lifted his head and saw a blast radius of half the accessible room, “Fuck me,”, but the door was still very much intact.

The ship dropped out of FTL.

Two walked into the room full of plants, stilling when one bloom lifted its head and looked almost hungrily her away, “One, wake up.”.

He blearily opened his eyes, looking at her for a moment with incomprehension, then colored when he realized that he’d shed most of his clothes in favor of the warmth of the plants, “Two!”.

He tried to play it cool, as one large leaf leaned over and obscured most of his front, even as his hands went over his nipples, nervously smiling, “S-so, what brings you by?”.

She raised an eyebrow after giving the plant that had been inching towards her a dark look, “What do you think? We’re about to enter orbit. You’re heading down to the planet to look for answers.”, then let her gaze drop to how the leaf barely covered his clothed crotch and bare stomach, “I _suggest_ you wear pants.”.

Even with his darker skin, his blush was bright red as he wailed, “TWO!”.


	7. Chapter 7

Five and Six were waiting in the smaller craft Three and Four had found when the others arrived.

Six was sitting in a seat, legs crossed over the head-rest of the pilot seat as she cleaned her blade. Five bouncing from one side to the next with a wide smile, clearly curious as he investigated everything.

Two stopped in the doorway, “I’m going to stay with the ship, to manually check things and get a better grasp of what we have and do not have.”, making a soft gesture towards the ‘android’ as he moved to the co-pilot seat, “He’ll go with you this time. As assurance.”.

Four sat to Six’s back left, not seeming to care how she hadn’t bothered to move her weapon for him, “Assurance towards what?”.

One looked at Three, who limped to the pilot chair before anyone else could sit there, pushing Six’s feet down, “What happened to you?”. He grimaced, biting back a groan while throwing a suspicious look towards the ‘android’, “I roll around a lot in my sleep. Even if it feels like I got kicked by someone as well.”.

The ‘android’ didn’t even look his way as he finished checking to see if this little craft had sustained any damage in what he had put together to be an attack followed by an escape into a meteor belt – hence the meteorite damage to the larger ship.

Two spoke over the two, “We tried communicating with whoever’s down there, but we’ve received no response.”.

Five frowned from where he’d sat behind at Six’s right behind the ‘android’, “Could be a tech issue?”.

Two didn’t seem to really believe this, “ _Could_ be a lot of things.”, then turned to Three, “Fly safe.”.

He scoffed, “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”, even as his hands easily flew between the controls and readied their departure.

She just raised an eyebrow, perfectly able to convey a dry ‘really, fishing for a compliment’ without coming off rude, then left.

One was the only not to watch her leave other than the ‘android’, a faint blush on his cheeks as his eyes had been drawn to what he believed to be scandalous looking before he’d quickly looked away as to not be caught.

Three gave a low whistle, “If only I liked women, because that was a _fine_ ass.”.

Six breathed out, “ _Damn_ ,”, before addressing the ‘android’, “Does this ship have a name?”.

He altered a detail Three had set, “It’s a S-rank Infiltrator. Designation, Leaflet.”.

Three grinned, not seeming to notice how the ‘android’ kept changing small details, “Leaflet? I can work with that. _Flicker-of-Flame-on-a-Little-Leaf_ sounds better though.”.

The ‘android’ just gave him a dry look as One beamed, “That’s so cool! So much better than Leaflet!”.

Three preened while the _Leaflet_ undocked from the ship and began its descent to the planet.

Six didn’t put her weapon away, making One comment, “There’s no reason to assume the inhabitants will be hostile.”.

She just continued, beginning to sharpen the already razor’s edge, “No reason to assume they won’t be either.”, as Four began to sharpen his knives as well.


	8. Chapter 8

The Leaflet flew over a colony, landing outside.

Four spotted a large warehouse sticking out not far from them.

No one noticed how the ‘android’s’ marks lit up faintly, before he narrowed his eyes, and didn’t move when the rest moved toward the warehouse.

No one noticed that he slipped away as they went on without him, entering the large building.

One looked back at the other four, “Remember, we’re just here looking for answers. We’re not here to cause,”, eyes narrowed pointedly, “ _trouble_.”.

For a moment he _almost_ looked dangerous serious like Two typically did, but he didn’t quite pull it off when his lips formed a bit of a pout.

Three just smirked, “And you think _we_ \- _me-_ would be the source of the trouble?”.

One frowned, “No-?”, but was interrupted by a voice, “That’s far enough!”.

The five of them span around, putting themselves back to back, with their weapons pointed out, Three’s in the direction of the voice, when people began to step out of shadows and from behind crates to reveal they were completely surrounded.

Three narrowed his eyes at One, with a very pointed ‘ _And you thought they WOULDN’T be hostile’_ , making the other man sheepishly smile and rub at his cheek, miniature flowers starting to spring up in the air around him.

The voice, a man, stepped closer, “Who are you? Why are you here?”.

Four frowned, “Yeah, I thought those questions might come up.”, not looking pleased even as he calculated how many he could take out with knives before gunshots killed them.

Five’s eyes went wide when he saw somebody new slip out of the shadows, sidling up behind the speaker for this group, pale arm wrapping around his neck and eyes lit up faintly, “That’s far enough, Mister Sarutobi.”.

The man stiffened, wheezing out slightly through the pressure on his throat, “How did you know my name, stranger?”.

The ‘android’s’ eyes flicked over the five of his crew, doing quick scans of each, “I hacked your electronic grid and found your list of personal and can match names to faces.”, and once he was satisfied that they’d gained no more injuries than he had left them with, turned his gaze out to pointedly looking at each of the thirty there.

A few, when they recognized what he was doing, paled dramatically.

The man next to Sarutobi narrowed his eyes at the five, even as he aimed a weapon at the ‘android’s’ face, “They don’t look like any Daimyo’s guard. They could have been sent by the Yamanaka-Nara-Akimichi alliance.”.

Sarutobi looked at the five, “ _Did_ the Alliance send you?”, forcing himself to be calm even at the immovable arm around his neck making spots dance at the edges of his vision.

Six shrugged, making sure the movement allowed her to shift her stance allowed her to more properly move to shield the longer-distance fighter Four was making out to be on one side, and provide cover for the close-combat fighter Five was on the other side, “Maybe. Could be.”.

One stepped forward, raising his arms in a placating manner even as the flowers floating in the air multiplied, “We didn’t come here to hurt anyone. Or get hurt.”.

Five shrank a little against Six’s side, “Especially that last part.”, even as Four sharply elbowed Three when he began to mutter, “ _You_ ma-“.

As Three had looked eager for any reason to fight, particularly when they weren’t the ones drawing weapons first.

One continued after a small angry pout towards the winded Three, “So why don’t we just lower our weapons.”, dropping his gun to the side.

The ‘android’ narrowed his eyes at One, as did Three and Six, who just looked _mortified_ at being told to do such a thing. The colony residents, though, slowly lowered their weapons when the only ones to remained armed were Three, even if Six had a white-knuckled grip on her naginata, and the man aiming a gun at the ‘android’s face when he didn’t release Sarutobi.

One looked at Three, and the ‘android’, “All of us.”.

Three slowly lowered his weapon, even if he sneered slightly, “If you get us killed . . I’m going to haunt _you_.”.

The ‘android’s’ eyes narrowed, looking like he wanted to protest, before there was a shudder through his body and a blank look came to his eyes as he released Sarutobi, and stepped back.

One looked horrified as the ‘android’ blinked and a furious look was on his face for a moment before it smoothed out. Five punched him in the arm, “You idiot! When Two was forced to do that override, she must have reset authority authorization. He can’t disobey orders from crew!”, looking angry as he started muttering about what he would do whoever had attacked them and left them running around blind and disabled.

Sarutobi rubbed lightly at the bruises already forming around his neck, then turned to look contemplatively at the ‘android’ and the crew before him, “You say your ship was attacked?”.

One rubbed nervously at his neck, “Well, we’re not exact-“, before Three cut him off, “Raiders. Came at us out of nowhere. Disabled our engines, looted our ship. Left us for dead.”.

Four watched how the ‘android’ nearly scoffed at the ‘came at us out of nowhere’, then getting angry at himself, before again, his body language smoothed out. Rather forcibly if the shudder meant anything.

Another of the colony men spoke, eyebrows high up, “You’re lucky to be alive.”.

Three shrugged, “We wouldn’t be if we hadn’t managed to restore life support. Nav systems down, we were flying blind, then we picked up your settlement on our long-range scanners.”.

The man who still watched the ‘android’ a bit suspiciously, white-knuckled on the grip of the gun he’d just recently lowered from pointing at his face, “You got _really_ lucky then.”, grit his teeth when Sarutobi spoke again, “Well, you’re welcome to resupply and help yourself to whatever you need but then you best be off.”.

Six narrowed her eyes, leaning forward with something just barely _not_ a threatening air, “And why’s _that_?”.

The suspicious man narrowed her eyes at him, “We’re expecting trouble.”.

Another of the colonists scoffed lightly, muttering, “The Shimura are _always_ expecting trouble.”.

Sarutobi was quick to wrap an arm around Shimura’s shoulders, squeezing him close, “What he means, is that my friend was the first to realize what would happen.”.

Shimura still didn’t look happy after all but being called paranoid, but he settled for just looking displeased as he explained, “This is an independent colony. We pull enough chakra-channeling metal out of the ground to get by, but we mostly sustain on creating starship steel. We’ve never been of any interest of any of the Daimyo, but that was before.”.

Four leaned forward, deeply interested in getting some chakra-channeling metal because that was _priceless_ material, “You hit a big strike?”.

Sarutobi nodded, “A couple of geologists sent by the Lightning Daimyo surveyed the nearby asteroid belt, and apparently they hit a major vein of chakra-channeling metal.”.

Shimura continued, “But without a HAB-1 planet in the vicinity, it would be too expensive to extract. They need a place to house the miners. Grow food. Source fresh water.”.

Six nodded, “Some place like _here_.”.

One frowned, pouting almost, “It’s a _big_ planet. Can’t you share?”.

Shimura shook his head, “It’s not big enough, so far as _they’re_ concerned. The Daimyo don’t _share_ planetary resources, and they demand tithes to those they’d already claimed the planets of or employed. As we’re neither, we’re a risk they don’t want interfering with their operation.”.

Sarutobi continued, “As long as we work this claim, we have legal title. But if we were to leave or _something_ should happen to us . . Well, you get the idea.”.

Shimura made a shoo-ing motion, “ _That’s_ why you want to be long gone before the _Suicide Forest_ gets here.”.

One frowned, “ _Suicide Forest_?”.

Sarutobi nodded, “No one really knows if that’s the ship’s actual designation, but that’s what it’s been called. It’s supposedly because there’s always a rash of deaths before its arrival.”. Shimura continued, “The crew works as enforcers for the Daimyo. They clean up loose ends, trouble spots. Like us.”, gesturing around to other colony residents, “No one knows _what_ they are because no one’s survived an encounter with them. There are tales of course, of the destruction left in their wake, but they’re no one anyone wants to meet.”.

Sarutobi began to lead them out of the warehouse, Shimura at his side and still casting suspicious looks towards the ‘android’, who had fallen in step with the rest of the crew as they followed, flanked by the other colony residents.

One frowned, as Five kept mouthing ‘ _Suicide Forest_ ’, “If this crew really is as bad as you say, why don’t you just leave? Save your lives?”.

Sarutobi looked at the distance, “You don’t get to a place like this unless you’ve already run out of options. Most of us are children of survivors of planets that one Daimyo or another wanted, and fled out to these uninhabited systems to escape becoming another ‘employee’ of the Daimyo. Not all of us can be like the Senju or Uchiha and exist within a Daimyo’s territory but not be ran out and replaced by employees, and instead employed themselves.”.

Shimura glared down at the ground, “This claim is all we have, we settled here because we were tired of running from one planet to another trying to escape the cruelty of a Daimyo’s rule. We’re going to fight.”.

Six eyed how some of the colony residents that had come out of hiding were young, roughly half their age and size, “Aren’t some of you a little young to be doing any fighting?”.

One of the kids, with three faint lines extending down from under his eyes onto his cheekbones, dark brown hair a crazy mess, frowned, “I’m old enough to want to protect my friends and family!”.

Three narrowed his eyes at the kid, who looked a lot like Sarutobi, and the kid narrowed his eyes back, sticking out his tongue.

The kid next to the miniature Sarutobi rolled his eyes and smacked the other kid upside the head, “Stop picking fights.”, then pinched his nose, muttering, “I knew letting you befriend me was a mistake. That we would get in trouble all the time.”.

Six leaned forward, finally putting her weapon away completely as she could see that most of these people were armed with farming and mining tools, a few with hunting rifles, and thus posed actual little threat in her opinion, “No offense, but it doesn’t seem to me like you’ve got the manpower or the fire-power.”.

Shimura pinched his nose, muttering, “And I said this. Multiple times.”, as Sarutobi just spoke over him, “We gathered together the last of our funds, sent out one of our people to score a shipment of arms from the Yamanaka-Nara-Akimichi Alliance. The real thing, like the weapons you carry. Enough for everyone on this settlement.”.

Four glanced between the two kids who kept making faces at Three – who was making faces back, trying to be threatening but came off more as grumpy – and Sarutobi and Shimura, suspecting that the four were related, “A shipment? When is it supposed to get here?”.

Sarutobi smiled, but it wasn’t kind, “Any day now.”.

Shimura shared that smile, “If it arrives in time, we’ll give _Suicide Forest_ more than they can handle. Make the Lightning Daimyo _reconsider_.”.

Three stopped trying to mess with the kids, drawn back in by the spike of _danger_ and _bloodlust_ , “Well, uh, good luck with that.”. He didn’t think any shipment of weapons was going to help them win, as while he could see quite a few of them had a little combat training, if their ambush had meant anything, something was telling him that they didn’t stand _a_ _chance_ against _Suicide Forest_.

Four bowed his head, “Thanks. Your help is appreciated.”, and Sarutobi returned the gesture, then began to lead his group away, “Gentlemen – and lady.”.

The kids lingered for a moment after the adults, staring at the ‘android’.

Without looking back, Sarutobi yelled back, “ _Hiruzen_! Danzo! Keep up!”.

The miniature Sarutobi jerked his head back at his name, “Just a _minute_!”, before pulling off a necklace from around his neck, to reveal a similar crystal as the one One wore under his shirt, except in a pale blue instead of a deep green, “Take this. It symbolizes freedom in the face of oppression. May you find your freedom with it.”, before the other kid grabbed him by the back of his shirt and started dragging him after the rest, “Come _on_ Hiruzen, before we get in trouble with your grandfather.”.

Six was the only one to notice how One gripped at something beneath his shirt as the ‘android’ stared at the necklace.


	9. Chapter 9

The crew boarded the _Leaflet_ in silence, loading up the supplies the colony had given them.

The ‘android’ moved to sit in the co-pilot seat again as he stared at the necklace he now wore around his neck.

One was frowning, before he sat down his current load with more force than necessary, “This isn’t _right_. Am I the only person that heard what they said? A shipment of arms? Obviously, we were meant to _help_ these people.”.

Three sat his down just as harshly, “You don’t _know_ that.”.

One crossed his arms, and the miniature flowers they’d all been ignoring springing up on their walk back and as they loaded things into the _Leaflet_ , multiplied and made the air heavy with their slightly bitter scent, “And the fact that we’ve got a cargo hold full of weapons. _That’s_ a coincidence?”.

Three crossed his arms, knuckles white where they gripped just above his elbows, “You think I don’t wish they stood a chance? Weapons or not, I don’t think they stand a chance against the one important detail I think _you’re_ forgetting. The crew of that ship, the _Suicide Forest_ , that are on their way to this planet to destroy everything. _I’m_ guessing we don’t want to be here when they show up if we value our skins still attached.”.

Six laughed harshly, “I’d like to see them try!”, something dangerous in her eyes that just _dared_ them to take someone away from her again, her mind full of blurry glimpses of a little white-haired boy being passively dragged away as she screamed and yelled and struggled.

Four grit his teeth, his own mind full of blurry glimpses of screaming while everything tilted around him, focused only on how a little boy was taken away as another one snarled and chased after them with crimson eyes, “They can try and I’ll kill them.”.

Three bared his teeth, eyes nearly red, “It would be death-“.

Five looked between the agitated adults, and shrunk back slightly, the air heavy with bloody promise, “Let’s table this discussion until we’re back on the ship, alright?”.

~

The air was heavy, a thousand unspoken things hovering with the hundreds of miniature flowers making the air stink.

No one said a thing as they were quick to unload the _Leaflet_ , then when their separate ways, too wound up to talk without yelling and physically fighting.

Five fled towards the bridge, leaving the ‘android’ behind where he still sat staring at his necklace.

Both Three and Six paused in their stomping away to watch him go, both wanting to say something, “Wait-“”Five-“, heard the other speak, glared, and made their way together toward the training room so they could beat the crap out of each other.

Four marched off towards the observation deck he’d been at previously, only to pause before leaving the room when he looked back to see One had lingered, looking despondent with a hand at his neck and watching the ‘android’ and them.

He sighed before he steered One back towards the greenhouse room the other had been so comfortable in, setting aside his own wish to think once more about the note he’d found and how he had the feeling the little boy in the memory was _Izuna_ , and preparing himself for the thousand and one questions he would be asked to help the other sort through his feelings.

~

Five ended up at the bridge, ignoring Two as he went straight to the half-blackened control panel and began tugging on the wires.

Two didn’t comment on his silence for several long moments, “What happened down at the colony?”.

Five scraped off some of the blackened bits from the wires, “They are a mining colony, but the Lightning Daimyo is interested in using them as a launching ground, a home base for their miners, to mine a heavy vein of chakra-channeling metal in the nearby asteroid belt. The Lightning Daimyo apparently isn’t interested in sharing and has sent a monstrous, blood-thirsty crew of a ship called _Suicide Forest_ to wipe them out. One wants to help them, Three thinks it’s a death sentence. Four and Six got really riled up and want to wipe out _somebody_ to avenge past grief they don’t remember.”.

She was quiet, processing that.

Five had nothing else to add as he tugged one wire completely out, then re-attached another in a different place after splicing it with half of the torn-out wire so it could be connecting in two places.

~

Three and Six moved in a flurry of strikes, ducking and dodging and lashing out with full intent to take someone’s head off if the other didn’t give their all for defense at just the right moment.

Six was quick to spin on her heel, fist tightening, “You _bastard_ , why don’t you want to stay and fight?!”.

Three barely blocked the punch to his face, “You think I _don’t_ want to! I would love nothing fucking _more_ than to fight!”. He lashed out with his own punch, which she neatly dodged, “Then why the fuck don’t you _fight!_ ”.

She lashed out with a kick, knocking him back a step, “Because they don’t stand a fucking _chance_!”, and he lunged forward, grasping her arm and spinning her around before throwing her to the side, to smack _hard_ against the wall.

Six snarled as soon as she had her breathe back, “That’s not the fucking reason!”, dashing forward and wrapping her arms around his middle, “Coward!” and bodily lifting him up despite his hits on her back.

Her eyes met his dark ones, a red-tint coming to them, “ _That’s not fucking why!_ ”, and she bared her teeth at the red, instinct telling her to avert her eyes from his gaze, but she was too angry to heed it completely, “Then fucking _why_?!”, tossing _him_ aside.

His back slammed into the ground, breathe knocked out of him even as stars swam in front of his eyes from the knock his head took, but he was up and snarling back in seconds, roaring out, “ _Because I’ve already lost Izuna once and I won’t again!!_ ”.

They stared at each from across the room, the air still heavy with their anger. Neither noticed how ivy vines had begun curling up from a new rent in the floor to twist and coil up one wall. It was quiet for a moment before Three rubbed a hand across his face, “Who the fuck is Izuna?”.

~

Two eventually commented on what he was doing, “The Android told me that he half-friend that console during our escape from the ship. He was going to fix it soon.”, watching as he tugged out one completely fried wire, “Do you know what you’re doing?”.

Five frowned as he inspected the fried wire, eventually peeling it apart to see if any of it was salvageable, “Well, it’s like you with the controls, or Four with his knives and Six with her naginata. For me, it’s wires, circuits, fuses. I don’t know why, but it just, it kinda makes to me. Not like all the other stuff.”.

Her eyes were sharp as she watched, “What other stuff?”.

He didn’t notice as he pulled the wire apart for the one strip worth saving, “I see things, in my head. Like, while I was sleeping, I saw a dream.”.

She went _very_ still, careful to not tighten her fists and kept her tone light, ”Yeah?”, something inside her almost _scared_ at what that could _mean_.

His eye flicked towards her, instinct coiling at how _dangerous_ she suddenly felt to him even if appearances alone would say she just looked politely curious. He didn’t see how the sudden surge of _danger_ gave his eyes a red tint, “I was walking through the forest with my elder brother. He was crying because our younger brother had just died but it just made father angry so I was walking with him until he could stop. I had to take him back even when he hadn’t though because father was getting impatient, then asked for training from father so he would leave _aniija_ alone and wouldn’t get angry at his displayed grief.”.

She made a non-committal noise that asked for more details, relaxing faintly as nothing about what he said struck a chord with _her_ , but now cautious for a different reason.

Five turned back to the console, “It wasn’t a bad place to live. Even after the loss of Kawarama, I had my elder brother, my sweet younger brother, and my cousin. I kept father occupied so _aniija_ could meet with his Uchiha friend and they could dream of peace while I lived in war. It was fine until Itama died, then I found the bastards who’d caused his death through their negligence and carved out their eyes.”.

Two blinked, “You carved out their eyes?”.

Five scoffed, “They clearly hadn’t needed them if they couldn’t watch over a seven-year-old. Father hadn’t really been displeased either – but apparently, my ruthlessness hadn’t been _enough_.”, then stood up, essentially done with the console, “Well, it was me in the dream. But it wasn’t really _me_ because it wasn’t _my_ dream.”.

He looked at her with wide dark eyes, and she stepped forward despite herself, pulling him into a hug because he looked _freaked-the-fuck-out_ at the idea of casually carving someone’s eyes out, “Whose dream was it?”.

He clutched at her front, trying to blink back the tears of thinking on that dream memory caused, because despite all the anger and violence he’d seen in it, it had been _sad_ , _bittersweet_ , like a dream of better, kinder times they would have traded anything to go back to, “I don’t know. But it was _somebodies_.”.

~

Four tried to ignore One as he meditated, but the other man was making it _hard_.

”Does no one see that that colony could all _die_ if we don’t help?”

“Why is Three so against us helping them?”

“Did I do something _wrong_ saying we should help?”

He breathed out harshly through his nose, unable to ignore the despondent kicked-puppy way One had said that last thing, and opened his eyes to One having pulled out a necklace from under his shirt, fiddling with it.

Right away, he could see it looked nearly identical to the one that kid, Hiruzen, had given the ‘android’.

An ‘android’ that had proceeded to stare at it for the next hour with an almost _perplexed_ look on his face, but they’d all seen how _lost_ he’d been at being treated like a _person_. Not just mostly-a-person as they had, but a full person capable of their own thoughts and feelings and wants who just happened to be unable to do anything on their own.

It had made him feel a tad guilty that they hadn’t been, but he held in his defense that until One had accidentally given him orders, that the ‘android’ hadn’t _really_ acted as anything _but_ his own entity.

He winced though at how they’d been unthinkingly treating him as an actual android though – even Two despite how she’d outright commented on his being more of a cyborg than anything.

One turned big watery eyes his way as he held out his necklace to be seen more clearly, including a small set of kanji, _for the aniija I love most in all the worlds, o Tobirama_ , carved into the side, “What does this _mean_?”. One sounded _heartbroken_ , something inside small and so _sad_ that he could have a younger brother who loved him so much and he couldn’t _remember_ , while another part of him burned brightly with a not-new desire to _find_ ‘Tobirama’.

Four didn’t know what to say.

All he could think about was his own note about Izuna, and his own burning desire to _find_ _him_.


	10. Chapter 10

The crew had been content to stay separate as they worked through the issues they’d developed just prior or because of the trip to the colony, but they weren’t allowed to be.

The ‘android’ had waited precisely one hour after they’d returned – after he’d decided to wear the necklace he’d been gifted, because it had felt _right_ and no one had ordered him to return it – before he’d decided that they all needed to eat.

 _All_ of them, because it had been at least twelve hours since they’d woken with no memories, and only two of them had eaten anything despite _having to_ _be_ hungry.

He’d been smirking as he’d tracked down each of the five and dragged them to the dining area – sometimes literally like he had with Five and One when they’d refused to go _near_ the food packets and had clung desperately by their fingertips to things as he pulled them along – because they couldn’t stop him here. Even if Two had disabled the compulsion to follow crew’s orders – and she was his favorite for doing that – it wouldn’t have mattered because he had a directive to see them alive _and_ healthy.

He might not have tried to hide that smirk as he’d herded Three along, might even had prodded him along by the bruises Six had given them in their ‘spar’. Three had looked _less_ than happy at his amusement as he’d yelped at one prod, before outright glowering when Six snickered at his pain.

As such, Three had tried to sit as far away from both Six and the ‘android’ standing by the door when he flopped down at the table and tore open a food packet.

He of course, didn’t wait to start talking about something a part of him had been mulling over since he’d heard the name _Suicide Forest_ , “The name of that ship is _lame_. I mean, _Suicide Forest_ , is eerie, I give it that, but _lame_.”.

The ‘android’ gave him a deadpan look, “Of the data I’ve been able to recover so far, one detail I have been able to discern is that the name of _this_ ship is _Forest_.”, just waiting for the sneer Three would give, and Three did not disappoint, “That’s even _more_ lame. I mean, _Forest_? Unoriginal.”.

One pouted a little at his side, as he _liked_ the name Forest for their ship, even if he was well aware that it wasn’t original and lacked a certain _flair_.

Three continued, grinning widely, “What about _Forest-on-Fire_?”, liking his idea to rename their ship.

Four just looked at Three for a moment, sensing a pattern in things Three named.

The ‘android’ scoffed quietly, “Only if we get to say _because-of-you,-Three_.”, having seen the same pattern as Four had, and tone mildly mocking of it.

Three sneered back, “Would that be so bad? At least it would be _original_.”.

The ‘android’s’ nostrils flared slightly as his eyes narrowed, before a voice interrupted him.

_“Ship’s Designation changed from Forest to Forest-on-fire-because-of-you-three.”_

Two pinched her nose, taking a deep breath before she spoke, “Three, did you somehow just change the name of our ship because you were _arguing_ with the ship’s android, who has to _say_ it for it happen without an order from the ship’s captain for it to change?”.

Three narrowed his eyes, “No. _He_ was arguing with _me_. Forest-on-Fire was a _much_ better name than Forest.”.

Four put his head in his hands, softly bemoaning, “ _Why?_ ”, some part of him _not_ surprised this had happened – that same part was sighing _I’m surprised it took this long_.

Six pat his back awkwardly, trying to give a little comfort as some part of her was also _not_ surprised that this had happened. It didn’t mean she didn’t sneer at Three, “Great. Good job idiot, now our ship is called something more stupid than _Forest_.”.

Five looked between Three and Six and winced, “Our new name _is_ a bit stupid.”.

Three whirled around to properly face the ‘android’, pointing a finger in his face lit softly by a red glow from his eyes, “Fix this!”.

After a pointed look at the hand in his face, he deadpanned, “I cannot. Ship’s Designation can only be changed every six months.”.

Three didn’t retract his hand, instead shoving it closer as he sounded a bit like a tea kettle, “ _Six months?!_ ”.

The ‘android’s’ eyes narrowed slightly, before he grabbed the hand in his face, pulling it forward sharply to pull Three out of his chair and forward, until they were almost chest to chest, then span Three around, kicked the back of his knees and twisted his arm, before breathing into Three’s ear as he leaned over him, “Do you need your hearing checked?”.

Five colored, looking disturbed as he pointed a finger at Three who had colored, eyes bright red, “EW. Stop being _gross_ Three.”, before Three suddenly leaned forward, other hand grasping the front of the ‘android’s shirt as one leg hooked around a leg behind him, to throw him off balance.

Three smirked even despite how they’d all heard his arm pop out of socket while he’d twisted around until he stood chest to chest with the ‘android’, right in his face, left hand clutching at his shirt just under his chin, “Do you want to play at doctor then?”.

The ‘android’ was blank-faced for a second even as his eyes were intent, then he smirked as he closed that bit of distance between him and Three, one hand just lightly skimming up the dislocated arm until his shoulder, “I don’t need to _play_ ,”, then shoved the arm back in socket, “doctor.”.

Three lost all color, unresponsive for that moment his mind whited-out from pain, which allowed the ‘android’ to push him back in his chair.

No one but Three heard the ‘android’ say in his ear, “Perhaps another time.”, even if they saw Three quickly gain back all color and go straight to cherry red because of it, sputtering wordlessly.

Five leaned over to poke gently at the re-located shoulder, to see if it was good again, before leaning back and making a face as he ate a bite from his food packet.

The rest followed suit, ignoring how Three continued to sputter incomprehensively at the ‘android’ for another couple of minutes.

It wasn’t until Three eventually took an aggressive bite out of his food packet while refusing to look away from the smirking ‘android, that One spoke again, “I think we should be helping the people at the colony.”.

Three’s eyes narrowed at One, knowing that the other had waited until he’d taken a large bite so he couldn’t interrupt, and swallowing as much as he could, he spoke, “Even if we’re supposed to be helping these people, _which I doubt_ , it doesn’t mean we’re going to do it.”.

The ‘android’ looked disgusted at Three talking with his mouth full of food, and Five looked a little green at seeing the already unappetizing food packet a half-eaten mush in Three’s mouth.

Two looked between the two, “We don’t even know what happened to us, or how we’re going to get our memories back, and we shouldn’t be involving ourselves in other’s problems when we have plenty of our own.”, and Four added on to that, “Not to mention that those weapons would fetch a _very_ good price on the open market. The money would go a long way.”.

One tried hard to not pout even as he narrowed his eyes, “Except they’re already paid for! They _belong_ to the miners.”, looking between the rest and trying to find who was least stable on their stance.

Four leaned forward, “It doesn’t matter if they’re supposed to belong to the miners, they’re in _our_ cargo hold, they belong to us now. And we don’t even know if they _are_ for the miners – with as many weapons Three has, it could just be our surplus as most of us pulled weapons from there already.”.

Six leaned back in her seat, looking at the uncomfortable Five, who she’d noticed agreed with One’s assessment that they should help but seemed to also agree with Two, “Those people will die if we don’t help them.”. She personally agreed more in align with Four, but she found she wasn’t comfortable with leaving the colony to their fate without at least some effort put in otherwise.

Three scoffed, “They’re already dead. They just haven’t accepted it yet. Not if their enemy is even half as powerful as they believe.”.

One leaned forward, putting his face nearly in Three’s with his eyes narrowed, “The least we can do is give them a fighting chance.”.

Three raised an eyebrow as he sneered, “The _least_ we can do is _nothing_.”, then looked over at the rest, “Which, for the record, is what I’m suggesting we do. It’s not our problem.”.

Two leaned back, “Let’s put it to a vote then.”, watching the rest.

Three crossed his arms, scowling, “Fine. I vote that we keep the weapons. We sell them. Take what we make to stay alive and find out what the hell happened to us.”.

Four nodded, “Agreed. Getting us involved would just bring us to the attention of the Lightning Daimyo on top of possibly killing us.”.

One crossed his arms, “I think we complete the delivery they are expecting. Help them.”.

Six shrugged, taking an aggressive bite of her food packet, “Give the colonists some weapons. A fighting chance at least.”.

Five nodded, “At least some of that massive surplus. Otherwise, we’ll be leaving them for slaughter.”.

Three sighed, “Three to two.”, then looked at Mito, “What say you, boss lady?”, choosing to casually acknowledge that she’d become their de facto leader.

She looked between them, and the ‘android’ who was once more looking at the necklace he’d come back with, “Set half the crates aside, the rest go down to the surface.”, understanding even if the rest didn’t, that their ‘android’ would help even if they wouldn’t.

One stood abruptly, leaving before the rest could say anything.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Speculation~ I love thee.
> 
> This is the end of the first episode of Dark Matter.
> 
> (I started this with the intention of being a one-shot, got fourteen+ pages in, and realized it was no longer a one-shot.)

Five and One loaded containers onto the _Leaflet_ after Six had lugged them there.

Three leaned against a wall, watching, “Make sure to lift at the back. Helps take pressure off the knees.”, absently polishing one of his guns.

Five gave him a side-eye as he took the container Six had just brought up, “You know what would take pressure off my knees, Three? _You_ helping out.”. He huffed as he took the heavy thing up the ramp into the little ship, trying to prove that he could pull his own weight when Six had brought up two of these without a sweat.

Three rolled his eyes at Five’s little show of bravo, only vaguely amused at how Six lingered, barely more than a step behind Five so she could catch the container if he stumbled, before sneering as he noticed her eyes were on his ass, “Yeah, it would. However, it would make me a hypocrite to help considering the way I voted and all. Got to stand by my principles and all that jazz.”.

One turned his head over his shoulder as he carried one of the containers Six had dropped off before, to look at Three, “I wouldn’t think you a hypocrite. I think it would mean that you are a good man who is simply unafraid to show his opinions even when directly opposed to everyone else’s.”.

Three narrowed his eyes at him, “Nice try there, not everyone agreed with you.”.

One raised an eyebrow in a serious manner, “No one denied that they wanted to do the right thing. Two just considered us a higher priority, and Four wanted to focus on our problems first. You just think it wouldn’t matter what we do, that they have already lost the upcoming battle. It was never about whether we all _wanted_ to give them weapons – it was about _priorities_.”.

Six rolled her eyes, “You’re _such_ an optimist, One. Not everyone wants to do the right thing as you call it when given the opportunity.”.

He pouted as he set his container down inside the ship, “ _I_ think they would.”.

Five looked away, remembering another dream he’d had that wasn’t his own, “Not everyone would.”.

The dream had been of an older dark-haired bastard with red-tinted eyes who didn’t hesitate to push dream-somebody’s cousin back and forth between the ideas of love and hate, trying to make his eldest son’s eyes crimson while training him to be a killer.

The other three looked at him, at the quiet fury in his voice and distance in his gaze, before Six loudly clapped her hands together, “Alright, I think that’s it. We’re good to go on this front.”.

~

Two and Four entered the bridge after having finished sorting out some of the weapons containers into two groups, having left Six to haul the ones they would send to the colony.

Four paused at the sight of the ‘android’s’ face, and how his eyes were narrowed in deadly concentration while they were lit ups.

Two stepped closer, peering closer at the blurry, scrambled image in front of the ‘android’, “That would be?”.

His jaw was tight, “I don’t know.”, frustrated because he _recognized_ the man, recognized them in the same way some part of him had recognized them in that second between activated security protocol and overridden security protocol, “This file is corrupt, and while it has been a difficult and _tedious_ process, I managed to trace it back to an only partially encrypted data cache. It allowed me to break the encryption for this and the other fragments of data I’ve recovered so far.”.

Four looked at him for a second, some part of him able to recognize through the blurry scramble familiar features also present in the ‘android’ beneath tanned skin. Two didn’t hesitate, “Let’s see it then.”.

The ‘android’ pulled up everything he’d decrypted so far, five different images showing up on the screen in front of them to replace the blurry scramble of a man’s face.

Two’s voice was tight even as it was forcibly calm as she spoke over the comms, “I need everyone on the bridge, _now_.”.

One quickly responded, sensing the distress even if her voice didn’t show it, “What’s the matter?”.

Four’s voice was sharp in contrast to Two, “Just get the fuck up here!”, eyes trained on the images of six familiar faces.

The other four were quick to leave the _Leaflet_ , and soon appeared on the bridge, Three scowling, “What’s got your knickers all in a twist Four?”.

Two’s lips were thin and she didn’t look at them, “Our ‘android’ managed to decrypt a significant amount of the remaining data – most of which was relating to this ship and its crew.”.

Six narrowed her eyes, looking between the stiff Two, tense Four, and barely restrained angry ‘android’, “That not good or something?”, wondering what the fuck had been uncovered to make the three calmest of the crew so visibly unsettled.

Two answered as the ‘android’ managed to decrypt more data to show beneath the images, “It’s something alright.”.

The ‘android’ read out what he’d found, as they stared at their own faces.

Three; “Madara Uchiha. Murder. Assault. Kidnapping. Arson. Bribery of officials. S-rank criminal – flee on sight.”

Six; “Tōka Senju. Murder. Assault. Smuggling. Sentient trafficking. Arson. Theft. S-rank criminal – do not engage.”

One; “Hashirama Senju. Murder. Assault. Kidnapping. Property Damage. Bribery of officials. S-rank criminal – flee on sight.”

Four; “Hikaku Uchiha. Murder. Assault. Counterfeiting. Fraud. Wanted in connection with the disappearance of Earth Daimyo. S-rank criminal – do not engage.”

Two; “Mito Uzumaki. Murder. Assault. Impersonation of officials. Wanted in connection to dissolvement of Wave Daimyo’s position. Counterfeiting. Theft. S-rank criminal – flee on sight.”

Two’s voice was still tight as she spoke after a long moment, “It would appear that _Suicide Forest_ was the name of this ship. And we’re not here to help these people – we’re here to kill them.”.

No one noticed how Two stared at an image he hadn’t dismissed after he’d decrypted it, but no one else had noticed in the reveal of their past lives. No one noticed him staring at an old, grainy image of a familiar small white-haired boy with crimson eyes and sharp features glaring at a camera, or that attached to it was – _Tobirama Senju. Murder. Assault. Attempted Assassination of the Fire Daimyo. Executed ten years ago._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry.  
> I regret nothing though - this was where I wanted the one-shot to end.  
> I may continue this AU to answer the million and one questions I have posed with this. I likely will, it just may be a little bit.
> 
> 11/27/17: It is continued!

**Author's Note:**

> I really, truly, want to know if anyone can figure out who is supposed to be who.


End file.
